Kid Coin - Learning Application

Fun ways to play, work, and learn!

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Kid Coin is a new learning application designed for children ages 6 to 13, to teach them about the concepts of money using fun and motivating app systems. This team challenge was conducted along with Athena Leung, Faye Teodoro, and Michael Ledesma over a 3-week period.

  • UX Research -  conducting and compiling research data from user interviews, surveys, and secondary research into user personas

  • UX/UI Design - brainstorming, key design decisions, wireframing, prototyping, user testing, hi-fi prototype

MY ROLE

PROBLEM

Children lack the knowledge and opportunities to understand the meaning and value of saving money from an early age.

We want to provide a way for children to learn, work, and play through a motivating and fun experience!

WHY THIS APP WOULD MATTER

Children can Practice with Money!

School can teach concepts, and adults can provide real-life examples, but practical application is the ultimate way for children to apply what they know.

Promote Positive Family Relationships!

It encourages parent-child interactions and healthy relationships by giving a child more responsibilities and parents ways to appreciate their efforts.

Understand the True Value of Money!

In-app coins make it easy for parents to reward children without real money. Children should learn the foundational ways around money before using it.

MY DESIGN JOURNEY

DISCOVER

· User interviews
· Secondary research
· Data analysis
· User persona

DEFINE

· Identify issues
· Brainstorm solutions
· Prioritize features
· Journey map

DEVELOP

· User flow
· Low-fi prototype
· Responsive design
· UI styling

DELIVER

· User tests & iterations
· Hi-fi prototype
· Future prospects

DISCOVER: USER RESEARCH

  • Target Users: children between the ages of 6 to 13

  • User Testers Criteria: children between the ages of 6 to 15 OR adults who have experience with children (e.g., parents, teachers)

  • Methodology: user interviews, survey distribution, external research (demographics, statistics, preferences, etc.)

Research Plan

Questions We Want Answered

  1. What are ways to capture and retain children’s attention and interest?

  2. How far are kids’ knowledge surrounding the concept of money?

  3. What is the value of a task system built within an app?

RESEARCH INSIGHTS

After analyzing our research results from 8 user interviews (4 adults, 4 children), and collecting data from 20 survey responses, we determined the following details:

  • Advantages: allowing children to practice with money strategically will help introduce them to money management skills at an early age

  • Disadvantages: children may argue over the payments they’re receiving if parents don’t fairly approve of the tasks

Parental Considerations

We also took a deeper dive into our target audience to establish some core values moving forward…

63%

16% say “no”
47% say “maybe”

Survey results state that some parents/adults have concerns about giving children real money to use.

40%

contribute less to their child’s savings account

External research reveals that parents are facing increasing financial struggles due to the economic downturn.

  • Considerations: To make our purchases virtual, by creating an in-app currency for children that doesn’t involve any real money.

  • Why? So parents don’t have to worry about their young children having to deal with any consequences with real money just yet.

USER PERSONA

Our development will take two types of users into consideration. We created a persona for a mother and a child to better assess the full scope of our work. Of the two, the child takes priority as our initial and main focus because we intend to better support children’s development through our design.

Main Focus:

Secondary Focus:

DEFINE: STAGES OF IDEATION

Problem Statement

Kid Coin is designed to help kids learn about how to earn and save money. We have observed that children are spending too much time on screens and lack the motivation to develop good saving habits, which is leading to ineffective spending and a lack of ideas to grow the money.

How might we develop a fun and engaging app experience that allows children to effectively practice with money, reduce screen time, and be more prepared for adulthood?

BRAINSTORMING

After brainstorming for features as a team, we collectively decided on the core values that would deliver to our users (children) in a meaningful and engaging way. We voted on the ideas based on the 3 key factors below:

Save Money

Child-Friendly

Interesting Topics

FEATURE PRIORITIZATION

Then, we went on to prioritize our results based on what matters most to our users and the feasibility of our design and development. Focusing on the high-priority, high-feasibility quadrant, we did a review of the feature ideas to ensure that they align with user needs.

Key Features

Bank System
To TEACH kids about money.

Task System
To MOTIVATE children to do work.

Rewards System
To ENJOY the in-app collections.

STORYBOARD

Through our storyboard, we are considering how children can be introduced to the new app we are developing. We believe that parent engagement is a strong factor in encouraging positive behaviour surrounding our concept and ideas.

USER JOURNEY MAP

Our journey map walks through an experience for Charlie to visualize how she will engage with the app, assess her emotional levels, and discover opportunities to improve the experience.

DEVELOP: LOW-FIDELITY & UI

USER FLOW

Main User Flow

Before diving into wireframing, we mapped out a user flow to determine how our main features would work by listing the main expectations under each tab.

This user flow represents a child’s experience of using the app. A legend is provided for reference.

Secondary User Flow (Reference Only)

To more strongly visualize the process and consider future developments, we also created a user flow for parents/guardians to ensure that their engagement aligns with the user flow for a child’s experience.

LOW-FI DEVELOPMENT

Based on the user flow for CHILDREN, we created the mobile prototype with the four major tabs below.

To further our development and make our app more user-friendly and responsive, we developed a tablet prototype of our app. Research also shows statistics that tablet use for children surpasses smartphone use.

You Might Ask… What’s the Difference?

  • Adjusted/Scaled component sizing

  • Eliminated scrolling needs on app screens

UI STYLE TILE

In order to attract and appeal to our target group, we selected colours, typography, and graphics that had a fun and playful tone. We know that strong UI is essential to our design to attract and hold user interest, especially because children have shorter attention spans.

Blue: Support and security. Helps build confidence and bring in user intelligence.

Golden Yellow: Brings a cheerful/fun tone to inspire and boosts confidence.

Pink: Friendly and playful nature. For a young, sweet, and positive experience!

DELIVER: HIGH-FIDELITY & FE DEVELOPMENT

USER TESTING

After asking users to test our main features, including the task completion process, reviewing the bank data, and playing with the rewards system, we received some valuable feedback for implementation. 

Top Issue Identified

  • Most users had a common issue of struggling with what to do due to no immediate instructions provided

PROTOTYPE ITERATIONS

Based on our testing results, these are the major changes we incorporated into our design. We made sure to validate these design decisions before applying them.

Tutorial Added

Users can understand all the main features with this tutorial.
It can be accessed at any time under settings.

Clarified Tasks

Some users were confused about whether coins were earned per task or set of tasks, so this revision helps to make it clear.

New Animations Added

Animations are created to make it a fun and interactive digital gacha experience that attracts children!

HI-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

Using our UI style tile as a foundation, we created fun and inviting visuals for the app experience. We coordinated the designs across different screens and added animations for a consistent, yet playful experience. 

We Continue to Align with Our Original Goals…

To Learn

Basic graphics and
varying tones to
make the bank system less intimidating and
kid-friendly.

To Work

More serious tone
and less visuals to
align with how hard
work/effort is required
to earn money.

To Play

Fun colours, pop-
ups/overlays, and
animations were added
to make the gacha
system more engaging

Try out the new app for Kid Coin! You may also find the Tablet version here!

FRONT-END DEVELOPMENT

Our app could use an introduction. In consideration of potential users, we began the development of a basic webpage that can briefly show users what Kid Coin offers!

Programming Languages:

DELIVERY & FUTURE OUTLOOK

What We Learned:

  • Understanding the thoughts of all potential users allows us to make more well-rounded design decisions

  • We need to keep our target users in mind at all times to ensure that the interface is well-suited to their needs and preferences

Next Steps/Improvements:

  • Continue to develop app screens for parents to complete the user experience

  • New potential target group: roommates/housemates — to extend our reach

  • Adding investment opportunities to expand children’s knowledge and practical applications

  • Conduct A/B testing to improvise the current app experience